Joy as Resistance
Link to video: https://www.facebook.com/138797592802860/videos/184182993013926
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
June 14 2020—Proper 6A
Genesis 18:1-15; Psalm 100; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:35-10:8
There is a moment, when listening to the soundtrack of the Broadway show Hadestown, that my heart breaks. Every time. Breaks with sorrow, and breaks with joy.
The show, for those of you who don’t know it, retells the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. And so, it is a love story. It is the story of great and powerful love between Orpheus, son of the muse of music, and Eurydice, a poor young woman who’d always had to take care of herself, and who fell for Orpheus, as they say, in spite of herself. They both lived in a world in which the seasons were out of sync, “either blazing hot or freezing cold,” because Hades and Persephone (the powerful god of the underworld and the goddess of springtime) had forgotten the rhythm of their love, the rhythm that allowed Persephone to dwell for 6 months under the earth, and for 6 months in the fields of her mother Demeter. Orpheus was in the midst of writing a song that would remind them of their love for each other, and thus bring back the life-giving cycle of the seasons.
While he was doing this, however, Eurydice was still starving. Not sure when her beloved would be able to provide for them, she gives herself to Hades, in return for the promise that she would no longer hunger, no longer care. When Orpheus finally looks up from his song, he has to make the long journey into Hades, to retrieve his love.
Hades, however, does not wish to seem weak. Does not wish to simply let Eurydice go, even after Orpheus has sung a song so beautiful that the walls have let him into the Underworld, even after Orpheus has sung to Hades the song that reminds him of his eternal love for Persephone. But, at his bride’s pleading, Hades grants the young lovers a chance: they can attempt the long journey home, but they cannot go together, side by side as they had wished. Orpheus must go ahead, trusting that Eurydice is behind him. If he can do this, they are home free. If he looks behind, even once, Eurydice will stay in the Underworld forever.
They walk, and Eurydice sings her trust and love to Orpheus, sings her thanks that he has come for her. They walk, and she sings, but he can hear nothing. And doubt comes in. He walks, but cannot silence his fear that it is some kind of trick.
He gets to within sight of the gate to the Underworld. He is steps away. But he cannot bear the thought that he might walk through that door, and realize that it was all a lie to make him leave. He turns around … and there she is. There she is, and he knows. Knows that she has followed him all this way. Knows that she has always been with him. And knows that he has lost her.
And Hermes sings. Hermes sings, and tells the truth in the hearts of all of us who already knew the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. “It’s an old song. It’s an old tale from way back when. It’s an old song, and that is how it ends. That’s how it goes. It’s a sad song, it’s a tragedy. But we sing it anyway.”
“Cause here’s the thing. To know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time: I learned that from a friend of mine. … He could make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is.”
He could make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is. This, for me, expresses the nature of Christian hope. It expresses our ability, our calling, to hold onto the promise of redemption and healing in the midst of despair and destruction.
I was reminded of this, in our readings this week, when presented with Psalm 100. This, the quintessential psalm of rejoicing, which could well seem discordant and completely out of place in a world that offers us little to rejoice about. In the midst of pandemic and a time of serious, unavoidable attention to racial injustice and suffering, how can we proclaim, “Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands”? In an age like this, how can we sing that “The Lord is good, and his mercy is everlasting”?
But Joy Moore, in the Sermon Brainwave this week, reminded me that to be joyful in a time of great suffering can in fact be an act of resistance. Not to deny the suffering. Not to say that it’s all okay. But to stand in the midst of whatever is happening, whatever might in fact be being done to you, and not be destroyed. Not be cast down. But to stand and sing JOY. To stand and sing trust. To stand and sing hope.
That is a powerful act of defiance. And it is the central act of faith in God. To keep singing the song. The song about love, that has so often still led to heartbreak and loss. To sing it anyway. Because it is the only thing that will lead you home; it is the only thing that can lead you home; because it is the thing that will, eventually, lead us all home.
The Biblical story is, over and over, a story that speaks from hopeless situations. In our Genesis reading today, we hear the story of Sarah, a woman who was promised a child of her own, but she is now far beyond child-bearing years. She has had to give her husband her handmaids, in order for him to father sons. She has suffered grief, humiliation, and jealousy, and clearly she has given up hope. But the angels come, and they tell the news that she will finally, finally, bear a son.
And she laughs. Not so much with joy, as with derision. And that’s fair: that’s what most of us would do, I think. But God reminds her and Abraham of the central task of the people of God: to be able to take hold of audacious hope. It seems impossible, but God will, in fact, do this marvelous thing. And Sarah’s mocking laughter is turned to joy. Joy in the midst of a lifetime of sorrow and shame.
It is our calling, as people of faith; our calling, as Christians. It is the superpower God has given us, to sing of how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is. Even though the reasonable response to this would be to mock. To laugh derisively. Even then, we sing. Even then, we laugh with joy.
Because that is resistance. That is how we manage not to be beaten by the suffering of this world. We refuse to despair.
Even at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Not to deny the pain of loss. But to take hold of the hope, and to sing the joy that cannot be lost.
Even in the fields of American slavery, the people sang. They sang words of liberation, words of hope, words of joy. And perhaps that sounded to their overseers like submission. Perhaps it even allowed them to believe that their slaves were happy with their lot, content to leave their freedom to the promised afterlife. But that song, that joy, was in fact the sound of defiance. It was resistance. It was the thing that gave enslaved Africans the strength to continue and not despair.
Because they were singing of the way the world could be, in spite of the way that it was. Which meant they were singing GOD’s song. And as such, it was also a song that pointed the way out of the way things are.
The Spirituals sung by slaves, in the midst of such profound suffering, contained both the hope and the concrete information that could lead to liberation. The songs pointed the way to reach the underground railroad. And just as powerfully, the songs were a way for an enslaved people to assert their worth, their humanity, their divine belovedness, even as their captors tried to deny that truth.
That is the way out. That is the joy proclaimed in the midst of suffering. That is the calling to sing about the way the world can be, in spite of the way that it is. To sing despite the mockery. To sing despite the urge to despair. To sing, not as a denial of the pain and brokenness of the world, but as an act of resistance. As an assertion of God’s desires and dreams for the world: that all would be healed, all would be fed, and all would be freed.
So be joyful in the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song! May it be so, Amen!